Although anyone can say they will, in practice, it's not easy to change–yourself or others. Today provides an opportunity to examine how we would like to change. One of the great marketing bloggers, Chris Brogan, began 2012 by announcing his three personal words for 2012: Temple. Untangle. Practice. Here are his three words for 2011. The problem I have with the Brogan approach is that it's difficult to determine when one has completed these!
Experts agree that the idea is to develop good habits and to stick to them. My new professional goals for the next 12 months can be expressed in declarative sentences that will require my acquiring new knowledge (some of it through repetition) and applying it, habitually. In addition to maintaining the most fruitful of my current activities, in 2012, I will:
- learn conversational German sufficiently well to be able to understand when people are speaking about a topic that is of interest to me
- learn how to manage Word Press themes according to community best practices and, using this new skill set, improve this and my other sites, including a complete redesign of my professional Web site
- add three new companies to any of my digital industry landscapes per week
- author (or collaborate on) at least one position paper (or other similar in depth, thought-provoking work) per month and,
- post to this blog at least four times per week.
Aiming for these goals and keeping to these habits in 2012 will be valuable in both my professional and personal life, and the world will smell like this bouquet of roses. Happy 2012!